Content Marketing 2016: stats & trends

Beyond any doubt content marketing is considered one of the most effective strategies based on the creation and distribution of valuable content and aiming to attract target audience.

The very nature of content marketing as an ongoing strategy is based on owning the media. Brands heavily invest on creating attractive websites, blogs, social media channels and regularly uploading relevant content.

The fact however is, that we produce more content than we can consume. There is physiological limit related to the amount of content a user can daily consume and this limit has already been exceeded.

In this year’s European Content Marketing Report, HubSpot and Smart Insights together with European businesses have published very interesting facts about content marketing in Europe.

Check out the main conclusions of the Report:

  • 21% of marketers valued content marketing as the best digital marketing technique based on leads and sales.
  • 67% of businesses are planning to create more content in 2016 than they did in the previous year.
  • 72% rated their content marketing as limited, basic or inconsistent.
  • 46% of marketers have not decided on a specific strategy or content marketing plan.
  • 75% agreed that blogging is the best content marketing technique.
  • 51% considered that Google Organic SEO is still the most popular distribution option, followed by e-newsletters (66%), infographics (60%) and long-form content (50%).
  • And the surprise: 35% of all participants rated Facebook as the most popular way for content distribution over Google Remarketing which came second (32%).

This ongoing competition about who will produce and spread more content is not only exhausting for marketers but ultimately makes the audience loose its interest. The perceived value is not being appreciated due to the huge amount of the produced content – just because someone liked your Facebook page or followed your twitter account does not mean that he or she want to hear from you 8 times a day! And yes, this goes for publishing and media sites too.

In the near future brands will pay more to promote their content, while users will also pay to get rid of ads in their newsfeeds or searches. Subscription services that will offer content without ads interrupting will increase, as users will choose to pay in order to access what they really want.

The truth is we do not need more content. We need more relevant content.

So, what is the solution?

The future success of marketers will rely on how well they will distribute the appropriate content to the audience that is really interested and will find it useful.

That is the ultimate challenge and also the only sustainable way for brands and audiences to find common ground.

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